Thursday, October 20, 2011

You and the Sensuous Fungi


Heh! got your attention with that title I bet!  Hey fellow foodies!  It's been awhile and boy do I have serious reasons, from a town evacuation due to fire to a fantastic trip to Costa Rica just this month and a whole slew of others...but the point is, I am ready to resume foodolicious!  I really have liked all those friendly little "prods" from followers..."Robert...what ever happened to your food blog,  Robert...I need some new recipes, Robert...is Foodolicious still alive"...to this I respond simply,

"Si!"


Today I write about my passion for mushrooms.  I would love to write all about how to go out and pic the wild ones, since I do that.  But the truth is I learned from an absolute one-hundred percent "shroom nerd"  Oh my gawd!  This man lives and breathes everything fungi!  I was fortunate enough to cross his path and get him to take me up into our local high mountain ranges last year and show me everything there is to know.  I am so grateful that I can pick in the wilds and not go into hallucinogenically induced spasms or worse...well we know what worse can be.  But my point is, here on my blog, I won't get into the "hows" of wild mushroom foraging because it's just too risky.  The way I learned is the way everyone should...at the side of a willing and knowledgeable Mycologist...like my source...but be warned in my case, that was all the guy could friggin talk about...but that's a good thing for your continued healthy well being!

But the mushrooms you can buy in your local grocery store, sold as button or white mushroom can be real palitable and real cheap if you do like I do.  So I am giving away my secret even if local fellow "los Alamosites" read this.  I go to my local market early in the morning then I go over to the produce department where the loose mushrooms sold in bulk reside.  So that the mushrooms remain fresh in the basket in which they are placed, they bag the old unsold like every two days and sell them for a fraction of the per pound price.  I snag these, sometimes three or four big bags at a time.  At home I slice them up, place them in my dehydrator for 24 hours and then they go into airtight jars.  Voile! 

Now for the fun part...the prior part isn't really that fun...shop, slice, sort, toss. It's the anticipation of what you can do with these dried morsels that is exciting.  Oh and by the way, when you dehydrate mushrooms, the flavors intensify! 

So here are some of my favorite things to do with dehydrated mushrooms:

1)  Take a handful and invent a marinade or use bottled dressing or use bottled dressing and add your personal touch to it, such as chili flakes, dill, fresh lemon juice, etc.  Then simply place the mushrooms in a container with the dressing, give it 24 hours and you have a really tasty snack.

2)  Enhance many meals by simply placing them into your spice coffee grinder and turn them to powder.  Then add this delicous powdered mushroom spice to sooo many dishes. 

3) Rehydrate them and add to soups, sauces, casseroles, etc. Do this by adding boiling water or broth to a bowl containing the mushrooms. At this point simply cover or add spices of your choice for added flavoring, such as garlic powder.  Cover the bowl and give em at least 30 minutes.

4)  Chop em up while dry and top your pizza with them for an almost chewy consistency or rehydrate first and then add for the normal texture.

5)  Make a delicious wintry cream of mushroom soup...you don't even have to rehydrate them for this.  Add them to your cauldron of liquids and spices and just puree the cooked product with an immersion hand blender.

6)  Invite over your vegetarian friends and impress them with re hydrated mushrooms used to make veggie burgers.  There are a zillion recipes on the Internet...or make up your own.

See! the fungi can be versatile and reasonable if you buy them the way I do...heck maybe even a tad sensuous...  ;-)  This year, was not a good one for wild mushrooms here.  I lucked out with one great patch of Oyster Mushrooms but overall, the rain just came too late to New Mexico.  So my dehydrated wild mushroom supplies from last summer have dwindled and I now have to rely on the store bought variety more so.  But I cross my fingers for next year, because there is nothing like a wild mushroom in taste...I suggest finding your own "shroom nerd" or taking a class at the local college.  It's just too risky to go out with mushroom field guide in hand...some in the species that are delectable resemble those that are deadly...just sayin.


Happy Fall!


robert